The Mating Game
by uglystuff
Summary: AU: Quinn Fabray's junior year at a small liberal arts college. Eventual Faberry.


There's a party at Dudley House. I don't feel much like going, but it's the first big rage of the season and that usually means the beer is above sub par (and free). I'm wearing stupid suede wedge booties that Santana said made me look like one of those trendy heroin chic girls from a small town who dreams of moving to the Village or Brooklyn or some suburb of Los Angeles. I hate them and can feel a blister forming already at the tender spot between my Achilles tendon and the back of my calve. I'm happy to ruin them, walking through the grass to smoke a cigarette under a tree, not minding as I crouch in the equivalent of a mud puddle. Some freshman girl is hurling over the railing of the front porch while a gaggle of senior boys take turns humping her ass like little chihuahuas. I roll my eyes, light a cigarette, wish I'd brought my camera.

No one interesting seems to have deemed this party worthy, and I knew that I should have just stayed home and read, or slept or fuck, even studied. The living room is packed with bros and trixies grinding on each other and drinking Smirnoff Ice. The last time I saw Santana she was disappearing upstairs with some sophomore from Cole Hall, her predatory smirk glowing in the light of the hundred little tea candles set all around for mood lighting. Kegs and tea candles, I must remember to congratulate the genius who thought up that one when the place burns down, bros and trixies trapped inside, trampled beneath their own Dave Madden heals and Air Jordans. I wonder what the hell I'm doing here, and stamp out my cigarette on an exposed root.

A jeep packed with drama geeks pulls up with a screech, and I roll my eyes as boys with glittery scarves and girls with page boy hair cuts pour out. Sometimes I really regret coming to this stupid liberal arts college. If it hadn't pissed my parents off so much, and offered one of the best photography programs on the coast I probably would have just done as planned and gone to Yale, or Columbia or some other big name, ivy wall, school.

"Hey, you got a cigarette?" This behemoth of a boy drops down on the grass next to me and reaches for my pack before I can say yes or no, pulling two out and lighting the first, tucking the second behind his ear. I can't fathom the energy to glare at him, so I just take the pack back, pulling out another and lighting up in unison with him. In the orange tinted glow of our matching lighters I can see that while he is huge, his face looks like a toddlers and he's wearing old Levi 501's that his mom must have bought for him at some cutesie little garage sale back in podunk wherever.

"Nice party." He tries to make conversation, and I barely grunt in response, taking a long drag and holding it in until little white dots pop before my eyes.

"Yeah." I sigh after a minute of silence. I can tell already this guy doesn't care that I'm not interested, and I suppose that's alright. The music shifts from the repetitive womp womp womp of dub step to some remix of a Talking Heads song that I've never heard, and I wonder why people can't ever seem to leave well enough alone.

"I'm Finn." Big Foot offers as he finishes his cigarette, crushing the burning end between his finger tips before tossing it aside.

"Quinn." I say simply. I do not care that his name is Finn, or that what his major is or isn't this week, or what his penis looks like, but he obviously doesn't know that because his face lights up with this dopey lopsided grin and he's chuckling to himself like I just told some hilarious dirty joke.

"Cool. Our names sound the same!"

"Yeah." I say again, pushing with one hand against the trunk of this massive tree and wobbling back to my stupid shoes. I drop the smoldering remains of my cigarette on the ground next to him and wipe my hands across the sides of this stupid leather jacket that I got at a thrift store for eight dollars.

He fumbles to get up, but I'm already walking away and can't be bothered to look behind me to see if he's following. I really hope that he's not since I don't have the heart to tell him to fuck off, or no thanks, or "I'm just really busy right now." I disappear back into the throng of sweaty bodies before he can catch up, and from out of the mass a red plastic cup is pressed into my hand. Never that desperate, or stupid, I pass it off to another already wasted looking girl who gives me this grateful smile like I just saved her kitten from a tree, or provided a condom when no condom was to be found.

"Thanks!" She shouts over the music and I turn away, pushing through the crowd to what I assume is the end of the line for the bathroom. There are at least five hundred people at this stupid party, and it seems that half of them are stupid enough to wait in line for an hour half just to use a toilet that's covered in dried semen and doesn't have any toilet paper. Knowing better, I make my way up the stairs that are littered with spilled drinks and cigarette butts. Once I reach the landing the roar from downstairs cuts in half and I feel like I can hear myself think again.

There's a long hallway in front of me with eight or ten doors on either side, covered in band posters and white boards and lists of names that I'm assuming go along with some kind of frat boy conquest chart. The first couple are closed and quiet. The door is open to the fifth door on the left and as I pass I can see some douchey beatnik guy sitting in his computer chair, looking bored and smoking a joint while some sloppy looking blonde girl goes to town, giving him head. He winks at me, and I keep moving, listening for any signs of life. Finally, I hear it from a few doors down, that familiar, Spanish growl.

"Santana." I command sharply, pushing into the room without bothering to knock. She's on a twin sized bed with the sophomore from earlier, in just her bra, riding him like a pro. He looks a little terrified, and his brow is furrowed and sweaty in concentration, like he's trying to impress her. Stupid kid.

"We're going." I say, crossing my arms and leaning against the desk, picking up a stack of cds and flipping through them while I wait for them to finish. Judging by the look on his face it won't be long. This guy seems like a total waste of twenty minutes, based on the stack of cds in my hand, and the political posters lining his side of the tiny, messy room. From across the room she yowls like a cat, followed seconds later by a kind of strangled grunt from the kid, and before he can even grasp his flaccid cock to pull out, she's off the bed, slipping into her jeans and not bothering to pull her shirt on.

We bail, heading back to the dorm at a slow walk, Santana hobbling on one foot since she forgot to grab her other heal from the kids messy floor. She's ranting about how she's going to have to go back tomorrow, because those are her favorite fucking shoes . I'm so over her drunken antics already, and it's only the first weekend of term. We've been friends since the middle of freshman year, when she felt me up at a party and then ended up puking on my art history book. Those are the kinds of events that will connect people, you know.

We push into the building, and our RA is sitting in the lounge, legs pulled up underneath herself, reading what looks like a book of beat poetry and smoking a blunt. She gives us her token wide grin and I wave back lamely.

"Hola, chicas!" She calls out, her words coming in a slow stream, her eyes blood shot to all hell.

"Hey, Holly." Santana bounds over to her, flopping down in her lap and plucking the blunt from her hand, taking a long toke, neither of them caring that Santana is still topless or that some member of the staff might come in at any moment. I drop onto the plush couch across from them, pulling off the stupid suede booties one at a time. Sure enough there is already a fat blister forming on the back of my heal, and in anger I through one of them at Santana, smacking her in the collar bone.

She doesn't seem to notice, so I through the other one, nailing Holly in the chest.

"What the fuck, Fabray?"

I shrug. Bored, and fairly certain the two of them are going to start making out soon, I peace out, leaving the stupid shoes in the lobby for someone to steal, or burn or throw away. I take the tiny elevator to the fourth floor, even though it smells like urine and cigarette smoke so strongly that I can feel the single beer I had earlier churning into my stomach. When I finally make it to my room (a single, thank god) I crack the window and drop onto the bed, throwing my arm over my eyes.

This year sucks. My therapist thinks I'm going through some kind of end of college crisis or something, and Santana thinks I'm perpetually on my period but of course they're both wrong. I just feel tired. Tired of these people, and these classes, and my stupid face staring back at me in the mirror every morning.

Depressed by my own self loathing, I sit up and light a cigarette, watching out the window as groups of two's and three's trickle passed, no doubt headed back from the stupid party at Dudley or the bar, or maybe one or two from the library. Rumour has it there are one or two students here who do more than get fucked up and get laid, but I have yet to meet them.

I finish my cigarette and toss the butt out the window before passing out.

Of course, morning comes before I'm ready and I wake up to Santana sitting in my desk chair, clipping her toe nails and guzzling the hugest Red Bull I've ever seen. She's still got her glasses on in the early morning hour and would look adorable if she weren't being so disgusting.

"Excuse you." I mumble groggily, turning over to get the sun out of my eyes and thinking about mustering the energy to throw my pillow at her. She doesn't look up from her feet as she works on the big toe of her left foot, but does manage to flip me the bird without breaking focus.

"You're getting your trimmings all over my rug, you twat." I scowl, the image of a freshman boy trimming his pubes over the communal bathroom toilet seat flooding my mind for some reason and making my queasiness from the night before return in full force. Santana, it appears, has no sign of a hang over even though she downed a pint of tequila on her own last night and smoked more weed than a Marley. She's a bitch like that.

Finishing up with her feet, she tosses the clippers I now recognize to be mine back into the desk drawer, not bothering to collect the tiny bits of toenail now scattered all around the floor before she leaves. I sigh and sit up, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes and pressing hard, until the black turns white.

I hear the door open and Santana pokes her head in once more.

"Get up, asshole. We're meeting the study group in twenty minutes all the way across campus." This time I do throw my pillow at her, but it misses by a foot and thumps against the door instead. She lets out a howl of laughter before slamming the door closed once more, leaving me to peel off my disgusting party clothes in peace. With no time to shower, I pull my hair back into two tiny pigtails at the back of my neck and pull on my school hoodie.

"You're a mess." I shake my head, giving myself a once over in the full length mirror hanging on my closet door before leaving to go meet the group. I'm not sure how the two of us ended up in this particular study group, and as we pull up two chairs at one of the big round tables in the student union, I am more than a little baffled by the utter nerds that surround me.

To my left is a boy named Artie, an architect major who listens to too much Elvis Costello and rolls around campus in his wheel chair, running over peoples toes and never apologizing for it, like we owe him something just cause he's disabled. He always smells kind of like my grandma and spouts off stupid facts that no one cares about.

Beside him is Tina, this Asian goth girl who wears way too much eyeliner, and always has fishnets layered over stripes, paired with plaid pants and like combat boots. I get what she's going for and all, but it's a little depressing to think about how much time she must dedicate to getting ready in the morning, only to come out looking like some bizarre love child of Madonna and Marilyn Manson. She doesn't say much, but I think she's some kind of painter, or poet, or maybe a math major.

Across from the two of them is Sam, who would be pretty cute if he weren't always wearing brightly colored t-shirts with nerdy references that no one understands on them and speaking in like, Klingon or whatever. He's the only one of us that's an underclassman, and he's actually pretty helpful when it comes down to it. He's always got all the notes that the rest of us failed to take, and doesn't mind letting us skeev off of them, as long as we'll buy him a forty or a pack of cigarettes after.

They're all nursing coffee, the kind that comes in those huge mocha cups that are completely idiotic and make you want to do nothing but sit in your room, and smoke weed and watch Friends all day. Artie is prattling on about something or other that I could give a fuck about, and everyone is nodding along sleepily, while Sam scribbles notes. Santana is filing her nails and not even pretending to pay attention as she makes eyes at some lug head with a mohawk across the room.

"What do you think, Quinn?" Artie asks me, and I zoom my focus back to the table, giving him a noncommittal nod before pulling my bag into my lap and rummaging through it, looking for my pack of cigarettes. I can tell he's annoyed because he blows air out through his nostrils and flicks the brake on his wheelchair on and off with an annoying click, click.

Unable to find anything to smoke in my bag, I stand up, and sling it over my shoulder.

"I'm going to get a coffee," I explain and walk off before anyone can protest or ask me to get them anything stupid like a refill. Crossing the room to the counter, I bypass it completely, heading out the door instead and into the crisp fall air. There aren't that many people out and I figure they're mostly asleep since it's Saturday. I'm grateful for the almost solitude as I make my way across the grounds to a small courtyard with a big modern sculpture that doubles as a fountain and a few benches.

Santana will be pissed that I ditched her with the Geek Squad, but whatever, she's a big girl.

I sit on a bench for a minute and watch the water trickle down the huge concrete slabs, my mind wandering away from Santana and studying and off to other things, like what my mother is doing right now, and the last person I fucked. It was over two months ago in Greece, and he smelled like a fish market. His arms were all muscle and when we did it he held me up against a rough, stone wall, my thighs around his hips, our sweat dripping down our faces. I can't remember his name, because I couldn't even pronounce it and the whole situation is just depressing.

"Hey," I recognize that voice, and I don't have to look up as someone takes the seat next to me, dropping a messenger bag stuffed with god knows what to the ground before us. "You're Quinn, right?" I only nod, letting out a deep sigh. If this guy couldn't take the hint last night, something tells me he won't now either. "I'm Finn," he pushes on. "From last night?"

I press my lips into a thin line giving a tiny "mhm," really wishing I'd decided to go to the mini mart to buy cigarettes instead.

"I didn't see you the rest of the night. Did you take off?" I can barely contain my eye roll, because obviously I left, considering I'm not still there. This one is a real keeper. The kind of boy that's big and dumb enough to lead around like a puppy dog, waiting on you hand and foot while being too stupid to know that you're simultaneously fucking your history professor. Just the kind of guy I would have dated in high school. God.

"Well, it was a lame party anyway." He says easily. I guess he doesn't mind having this conversation with himself, because that stupid half grin is back on his face again like he hasn't noticed that I'm not saying a word. He's got on this pair of knock off Wayfarer's that are too small for his enormous head and those same grandpa jeans he was wearing last night. I almost feel sorry for him.

"I live in Smith, over on the East side of campus, and we're having a thing tonight. Nothing like the party last night. Just some good people, beer pong, some music." Great, beer pong - right up my alley. Obviously this Finn is not only a genius, but he's got a knack for reading people. Not. "What do you say?"

"What do I say about what?" I snap, turning to look at him with a raised eyebrow. Fuck, I really need a cigarette. His eyes widen comically like he finally just got a little bit of a clue, and he chuckles nervously, like some fifteen year old boy unhooking a girls bra for the first time and failing horrible.

"About, uh, the party?" He asks it like he's not so sure himself and rubs his huge mitt against the back of his head. "Like, I thought maybe you would want to come and hang out, or whatever."

"And why would you think that?" I ask coolly, turning my attention back to the fountain. I'm aware that I'm being a grade A bitch, but I am what I am, and it's just too early to deal with being hit on by the same guy in less than twelve hours.

"Because it's going to be...fun?" He states blankly, like I've got him more confused than the Geometry class he's probably taking and for a half a second I feel a little bit sorry for him. Aside from being giant and clueless he really has done nothing wrong, and I feel my self loathing from last night sink a little bit deeper into the abyss.

I'm looking at the fountain and he's looking at me and the tension in the air reminds me all too much of those family dinners way back when after my dad was caught fucking around and my mom was too drunk to realize that the housekeeper was serving us frozen foods. I can't handle that kind of harsh silence anymore, so I sigh again, realizing that I should probably give him a break.

"Maybe." I say simply, standing and pulling my bag onto my shoulder, giving him what to some could pass as a smile, but felt like a grimace. His face lights up automatically, like I just granted him his greatest wish and hadn't been a huge cunt to him for the last fifteen minutes.

"Alright, awesome! It starts at nine, but things don't usually get into full swing until ten or ten-thirty, so show up whenever. And feel free to bring your friends. Like I said, it's not going to be a huge party, but there will be plenty of booze." I keep my mouth shut, afraid that if I say anything else that stupid smile will fall from his face again and I'll have to walk around with the guilt of that all day. Instead I just nod, before walking away, back in the direction I came.

He doesn't follow me, thank god.

"See you, Quinn!" He calls after me, and I raise my hand over my shoulder, not turning around.

More people have filtered onto campus and I see the freshman girl from last night, crying on a park bench while a few other freshman girls console her. She must have heard about her Linda Blair impression last night and I roll my eyes, feeling half irritated, and half sorry for her. We've all been the girl puking off the porch before. She'll get over it.

Slowly I make my way back to the union, hoping that the group has left already and I won't have to deal with them berating me. I stop at the campus store and pick up two packs of cigarettes and a tootsie pop, dumping them and the change into my bag. I check my cell phone. One missed call from Mom and two texts, both from Santana.

What the fuck? Way to abandon me in the valley of the nerds!

and

You will pay.

She'll get over it, of course. It's not like she was paying attention anyway, and she's probably already off with mohawk guy, giving him head in the back of his band's van. I don't know if he's in a band or not, be just seems like the type of throw back, rockabilly, burn out boys that plays shitty covers and thinks he's the man.

Deciding against going back into the union after all, I turn left and head in the direction of my dorm, figuring that I might as well get a little homework done. After all, it's not like I have anything better to do.

I don't even know what I'm doing here, but I made the mistake of telling Santana about running into Finn again, and she hounded me for an hour until I agreed to come. She's wearing the shortest little red dress known to man and not a single pair of eyes has passed over her since we got here, boys and girls alike drinking her in greedily. Of course she looks amazing and she knows it, but that usually just means she's going to get shit faced, fuck some moron and make me take care of her. Stupidly, I have decided to get wasted tonight, wondering if she will take care of me as well as I do her.

"Hello there, delicious." Mohawk guy is back, slinging his arm over her shoulder and pulling her into his chest. She giggles, actually fucking giggles and before anything else can be said they're sucking face, moaning into each other's mouths like a couple of porn stars and completely grossing me out.

Well, so much for being taken care of.

Scoffing, I turn away from them, making my way through the main room and into the kitchen. There about a fourth as many people here as there were at Dudley last night, but I still haven't seen Finn. I haven't decided if that's good or bad, and before I can give it too much thought, I pour another cup of beer from the keg, wrinkling my nose when it comes out foamy and flat.

"There's another over there." A voice sounds next to me and I look up into the happy eyes of Finn, who's already handing me a fresh cup of beer and taking the disgusting one from me, pouring it down the drain of the kitchen sink. He's a nice guy, I'll give him that. He's dressed in slacks and a dark blue button up, with his hair just a little tousled and I have to admit that he does look a little bit fuckable.

"Thanks." I give him a real smile and his grin widens, before he takes a sip from his own red plastic cup. We stand around chatting for a few minutes, and I learn that he's a music major, hoping to someday make the music that goes along with movies like B rate action flicks and crime dramas that seem to be on every channel these days.

"I just love the way music can really creep you out in those things, or get your heart pounding. Like, when a car is speeding down the highway, being chased by a dozen cops and the guy is diffusing a bomb in the front seat while his partner in crime drives the get away car, or whatever." He's kind of lost me at this point, and my head is spinning with a nice buzz, so I just chuckle and nod, letting my eyes roam over the crowd that has accumulated since my arrival.

"Want to go play some beer pong?" He asks excitedly, and I raise an eyebrow at him, shaking my head no. I was never very good at that game, and after about thirty seconds always find myself utterly bored with the whole situation. He looks crestfallen for a moment, but then something catches his eyes and there's that smile again.

"Rach!" He yells over the music that's picked up in volume in the last few minutes, and a tiny brunette girl comes running up to him, launching herself into his arms. He holds her close, spinning her around once or twice, and she laughs wildly, her hair flying around them in all directions. They look adorable, like some old romance film that leaves you feeling simultaneously hopeful and utterly alone. He sets her back on her feet, and they're still laughing, eyes twinkling,. Half his beer has splashed onto the floor and my shoes but he doesn't seem to notice, and I can't really bring myself to care.

"When did you get back?" He's asking excitedly and the girl launches into some long winded, pedantic babble about Lyon and checking out schools and her parents and a million other things that I have no hope of keeping up with in my buzzed state. Finn has forgotten I exist and I don't really mind, satisfied to sit back and look at the two of them, pretty as a picture. I let my eyes skim the girls face, and realize that she's fairly decent looking, with big brown eyes and a megawatt smile. She's at least two feet shorter than him, and they look almost comical standing there together, grasping each other's elbows and laughing and shrieking in unison like a couple of teenage girls.

"Oh, Rachel, this is Quinn." He remembers my presence and they both turn to me, the flush of their cheeks from laughter a little overwhelming, like maybe I just watched them have some kind of weird sexual moment and didn't notice it. She gives me her full attention, her eyes raking over my face, all the way down to my toes in a way that surprisingly doesn't make me feel perved on.

"Hi!" She sticks out her hand and I shake it carefully, noticing only after we've let go that my hand is sweaty from holding this plastic cup for so long. I feel embarrassed for half a second but she doesn't seem to mind, and smiles at me warmly. "It's so nice to meet you, Quinn, was it?" I nod. "I'm Rachel Berry. It's nice to meet you!"

"Likewise." I say simply, taking a too big gulp of my beer, and not minding when she turns her attention back to Finn, launching into some story about some show or other that she's hoping to land a role in this winter. Ah, a drama major, I should have known.

"Yo, Fabray." Santana comes sauntering in, wobbling a bit on her heals and knocking into Rachel without noticing, pushing into my side and wrapping her arms around my waist. "I was wondering where you snuck off to." She reeks of booze and weed, as usual, and leans in, planting a sloppy kiss on the corner of my mouth. I rub my palm against her cheek, half caressing her, half pushing her away, as my lower body sags into hers.

"Are you having fun?" I ask, sliding my hand up into her hair and scratching my nails along her scalp. She purrs in appreciation, nuzzling her forehead into my neck, and nodding. I laugh openly. Santana and I have always been weirdly affectionate when we get drunk, despite how much we mostly hate each other all the rest of the time. She's warm, and soft, and sometimes it's nice to just have someone to hug.

She turns to take in the other two standing near by still, Rachel with a bemused smile and Finn looking utterly confused.

"Who are these dorks?" Santana asks, pulling away from me only enough to steal my beer and down half of it in a surprisingly lady like chug. I can't help but chuckle as I push her the rest of the way off of me, moving over to the keg to get another cup for both of us, while Finn and Rachel introduce themselves.

"We're going to play beer pong." Santana slurs when I return, her hand pressed to Finn's wide chest, her eyes gleaming. I nod, knowing that she would go no matter what I say. Santana and Finn disappear through the main room and down some stairs into what I assume to be the basement, and I am left with little Rachel Berry, who still looks very tiny.

"You're very tiny." I say, narrowing my eyes on her and holding my beer cup up to my lips. She raises both eyebrows before laughing lightly, shrugging her shoulders.

"I suppose so," She agrees. And that's it. We stare at each other silently for a minute before I start to feel like something in crawling along my skin, and have to stand up.

"I have to pee." I say bluntly, dumping the rest of my mostly full cup into the sink and turning to go find the bathroom before she can say anything. It's not that she's not nice, because she is. I've just never been so great at talking to people I don't know, or caring what they have to say and who they are. So, I take my leave, pushing through the party and into the fresh air of the back porch, already having forgotten that I had to pee.

I light a cigarette and sink onto the porch swing, pushing it to life with the heal of my boot and sitting there quietly, swaying to and fro, to and fro. The rocking motion starts to make me nauseous and I flash back to the image of that girl crying in the courtyard this morning, for some reason feeling tears prick at the corner of my eyes.

"Fuck." I mutter pitifully, swiping at my eyes with the sleeve of my wool sweater, relishing in the sting of the rough fabric on my skin. My mind wanders to Finn and Santana downstairs, playing beer bong, or smoking weed, or maybe in his room fucking already. I don't like him very much, but he is nice and I feel bad that Santana is going to leave him high and dry, maybe even before morning.

My phone vibrates in my back pocket, once, twice, and a third time but I ignore it, knowing that it's either someone from study group, or Santana, or worse, maybe my mother. I can't bring myself to check the screen and instead drag on the cigarette some more, before tossing it, still lit, into the grass in front of me. A part of me hopes the whole lawn will catch fire, burning this all down. All these morbid thoughts are fucking depressing, and I still don't feel well from the beer and the swinging and something in side of me just wants to go home, but I don't even know what that means.

The music shuffles, and I stand up to leave, crossing the soggy lawn and heading in the direction of The Watering Hole. It's a disgusting little dingy campus bar with too many intellectual guys wearing black framed glasses and tweed jackets with elbow patches. The whole scene is fucking depressing, but they've got three dollar pints and it sounds better than going back to my room to cry over my essay on Leibovitz.

There's a group of lit majors standing outside smoking clove cigarettes, and I think I slept with one of them last term but I can't really remember. They all look the same anyway. I avoid eye contact, but think I hear one of them say, "Hey, Quinn" as I pass by into the bar. There's a heavy cloud of cigarette smoke hovering overhead, and some sports game is blaring from above the bar. The place is packed but I manage to get a drink fairly quickly, and snag a seat at a booth with some kids in my modern poetry class. They're having a heated debate about Robinson Jeffers and I tune them out almost instantly, wishing I had sunglasses or something and wondering when it got so bright.

My phone vibrates again and again I ignore it.

"What do you think, Fabray?" A blonde guy asks me and I want to smack the smug look off of his narrow face. I think his name is Jeff but I can't remember and mostly don't care. I flip him off in true Santana fashion and the group roars with laughter. I pinch the bridge of my nose, squeeze my eyes shut, down the rest of my pint.

"Don't you jack asses talk about anything but school?" This kid Mike pulls a chair up to the end of the table, spinning it around and balancing his elbows on the back. Once again the sheep holler in laughter, and he grins cheekily, sliding a pair of sunglasses down from his forehead to the end of his nose, peering at the rest of us over them like we're under inspection or something. He kind of floats when he moves and I think he's a dance major, but again I can't remember and don't care.

They go on babbling and debating and drinking and laughing, and someone digs an elbow into my ribs to get me to laugh along, but I just stand up and move back to the bar, ordering another pint and getting it on the house, the girl behind the bar giving me a wink and a sly smile. She's vaguely pretty, and I like her Smith's shirt, so I take a seat at the bar, cracking open some of the peanuts in the tiny bowl in front of me, but not eating them. Above me the television roars as some team beats some other team at some insipid sport, and the bar matches the sound. Instantly, the crowd starts to dissipate and I can't help but wonder when so many people at an arts college started giving a flying fuck about sports.

"Did you finish the paper for Stephens class?" The bartender is asking me, and I feel bad that I don't recognize her from the class she's talking about. I give a shake of my head and take another gulp of the beer, the taste lingering too long on my tongue, making me sputter a little bit.

"Me either." She laughs, flipping a white bar towel over her shoulder and the whole thing is just so contrived that I laugh along with her, my head spinning a little bit. I want to smoke a cigarette, but as I pat my pockets down I realize I must have left them on that stupid porch swing and almost consider texting Santana to tell her to grab them, but that would mean looking at my missed calls and I don't feel ready for that yet.

"We close in half an hour," She says quietly, her eyes raking over my face and I nod slowly, unsure if she's telling me to close out a tab in leave, or inviting herself back to my room.

"I'll see you in about thirty-five minutes then." I say boldly, and she flashes me another grin. Satisfied that I hit the mark, I stand from the bar, teeter a bit, before steadying myself and leaving the stuffy pub. Checking my watch I decide I have enough time to head back to Smith to grab my cigarettes and maybe check on Santana.

Of course, my smokes are gone, but I recognize the butts of my brand littered around the bar stools and growl in frustration. Things seem to have died down a bit inside, so I take a deep breath, going in and looking around for Santana. There are a few girls passed out in the living room, being molested by drunk frat guys, and a group playing quarters at a table in the kitchen. No one is in the basement, and it looks like someone flipped over the beer pong table, red cups rolling on the ground, beer stains making a lake on the concrete.

I contemplate going upstairs, but really don't feel up to seeing Santana fucking some guy for the second night in a row, so I just steal a pack of cigarettes off one of the speakers by the back door and leave again. They're Pall Mall lights, and totally gross, but I'm drunk already and they're better than nothing. A few blocks down I can see the lights of the bar shutting down and the last few stragglers standing out front passing a joint.

Suddenly the thought of fucking this girl seems too overwhelming, and my head starts spinning. I crouch down on the curb and puke in the gutter, careful not to get any on my boots or jeans. It's the kind of vomit that's all foam and beer and maybe the little bit of yogurt I had for breakfast, and leaves my mouth tasting acrid and disgusting. I wipe my mouth, spit, take a drag on the Pall Mall and stand up, feeling better.

I wish I had some gum or something, and when I meet the bartender outside the back of the bar she's sipping on a screwdriver in a Pepsi cup and gives me a drink. I take the smallest of sips, just to wet my tongue and hand it back to her. We hold hands for some reason on the way to my room, and she tells me about the assholes that frequent the bar, and how she always sees me sitting in the back of Stephens class, looking broody and hungover.

I nod and shrug in all the right places, and she just thinks I'm so terribly charming that I can feel the nausea returning. We make it to my building, and to my room, and I excuse myself to brush my teeth, splashing some water on my face and staring myself down in the mirror. There are dark circles under my eyes and my bottom lip is chapped. I look like shit, but it doesn't matter because I'm going to get laid anyway.

When I get back to my room she's stretched out on my bed, smoking a joint in only her boy shorts and a wife beater, hair tousled around her, looking like some kind of androgynous angel. I pull my shirt over my head and unhook my bra, bending down to unlace my boots before crawling next to her on the bed. She stretches her bare legs over my lap and hands me the joint, which I smoke greedily, taking long drags and holding them for as long as I can, before blowing the smoke in her face. She laughs, tickles my ribs, falls over sideways on the pillow. I toss the roach into the ashtray to go out and then we're kissing, laughing, fucking and I'm thinking that maybe the night didn't suck so much after all.

**AN: Hope you enjoyed. Please let me know what you think.**


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